Another man apparently raised the illegal parking issue with the woman. When the boyfriend came out of the convenience market, he joined the altercation and viciously pushed the man who complained about the illegally parked car to the pavement.
The man on the ground pulled a gun and shot his attacker.
Stand your ground or no?
LOOKING AT VIDEO snippets of the incident seems to show the assailant standing back after shoving the complainer; the assailant did not seem to continue the attack, although (a) the video is incomplete and (b) there was no sound with the video, so it is unclear if the man who was shot was making life endangering threats.Videos and local media articles can be viewed/read at
NOW, Al Sharpton, looking for more tv face time, is coming to town to aggravate an already tense situation.
The question that the state will have to sort out – and which is guaranteed to incense one side or the other – is was the shooter justified; was it truly a “Stand Your Ground” situation.
According to local media (ibid.), the shooter – who has as of Monday, August 6, not been charged, was yelling at the woman who parked in the handicapped space. The video shows him standing several feet from the car and not physically threatening the woman.
The driver’s boyfriend who, according to the convenience store clerk was buying his son a candy bar, came out of the store and, hearing the shooter yelling at his girlfriend, violently shoved the man to the ground.
The man then pulled a gun and shot his attacker once in the chest, killing him.
The videos and articles support this.
The shop clerk and another customer reported that this was not the first time the shooter confronted someone illegally parking in the spot dedicated for handicapped persons. The customer claimed that the shooter threatened to shoot him, too, although he did not say the shooter displayed a weapon.
In a similar situation, a clerk in a Miami Subway sandwich shop, chased several customers with a long knife. A smartphone camera caught the confrontation.
One of the customers was armed. (Video at http://tinyurl.com/y73z3nf6 )
Fortunately for the Subway (now ex-)employee, the man chose not to use his weapon despite the fact that the knife-wielding clerk was waving the knife, albeit she did not “get into the face” of the customers. Nor did the customers act to escalate the confrontation.
The Stand Your Ground law allows a person who feels that his life or safety or the life or safety of another is in peril, the person can use deadly force to protect life and safety.
In the Miami instance, the armed customer apparently did not feel his life, or the lives of his friends, was in real danger. The video, at least what is shown by the media, suggests the customer made the right decision.
Each case is different. Each case is unique.
- It’s not always easy to see a person’s disability. A person who has trouble breathing may look perfectly healthy, but still needs the parking permit. A woman with fibromyalgia explains her plight at http://tinyurl.com/ybdwotvv . She HAS a hang tag (unlike the woman who parked in the convenience store's handicapped spot).
I have been known to ask a healthy looking person where is their handicapped hang tag; sometimes they return to their car and hang the tag on the mirror; more often that not, I am ignored. (I don’t argue with idiots, but I do call the local police.)
It’s simply not worth going beyond one remark: “You’re in a disabled person’s spot.”
Almost everyone has a cell phone; USE IT. Get in your car, lock the doors, write down the offending vehicle’s license, and call the cops. If you can, photograph the car from the back, showing the license plate and the handicapped parking sign in the same photo. No camera? What about a dash cam; equally effective albeit requiring more effort to align camera, violator’s license plate, and sign.
An acquaintance has handicapped license plates, but he tells me that legally, he still is required to use the hang tag when parking in a handicapped spot.
Even if you have a carry permit and a firearm AND you think you are legally allowed to shoot someone, reconsider. Even if you ARE justified in shooting, consider the “repercussions” – explaining to the cops, explaining to the district attorney, the probability of an Al Sharpton coming to town to agitate (unless of course it is a black-on-black or black-on-non-black shooting), and the real possibility of defending your action in court.
- It’s interesting that Sharpton never shows up when blacks kill blacks in the all too commonplace drive by shootings.
The ONLY time Stand Your Ground is a solid defense against a homicide charge is when your life or the life of someone else is in jeopardy. If the assailant runs away or backs off and you shoot, expect to be charged. And never, ever, shoot into a crowd even if you think you’re an expect marksman.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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